Aum’s Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World

This is the story of the ultimate cult: a wired, high-tech, designer-drug, billion-dollar army of New Age zealots, focused around the leadership of a blind and bearded madman, armed with weapons of mass destruction. Like scenes of an apocalyptic future in a cyberpunk novel, this story is also the stuff of nightmares. Cultists wired electrodes to their heads while chanting ancient mantras and logging on to computer nets. Methamphetamine, LSD, and truth serum – the product of homemade laboratories equipped with the latest gear – ran through their veins. Those same labs worked at refining enough chemical and biological weapons to kill millions. Other cultists attempted to build a nuclear bomb while massive facilities were built to manufacture handguns and explosives. All this activity went toward preparing for – and then unleashing – Armageddon. In 1984, guru Shoko Asahara had a one-room yoga school, a handful of devotees, and a dream: world domination. A decade later, Aum Supreme Truth boasted 40,000 followers in six countries and a worldwide network that brought it state-of-the-art lasers, lab equipment, and weaponry. Aum’s story moves from the dense cities of postindustrial Japan to mountain retreats where samurai once fought, and then overseas – to Manhattan and Silicon Valley, Bonn and the Australian outback, and finally to Russia. It is there, in the volatile remains of the Soviet empire, that the cult found ready suppliers of military hardware, training, and, quite possibly, a nuclear bomb. Aum leaders systematically targeted top Japanese universities, recruiting brilliant but… [Read full story]